


punish me with this, and this with me

by calico_fiction



Series: little cuts [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Canon Compliant, Cognitive Dissonance, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Anguish, Mind Control, Partial Mind Control, Psychological Horror, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23960572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico_fiction/pseuds/calico_fiction
Summary: Loki only knows what he doesn't want when it is forced on him.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: little cuts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1121556
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	punish me with this, and this with me

**Author's Note:**

> title from Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4:
>
>> I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so  
> To punish me with this, and this with me,  
> That I must be their scourge and minister.  
> I will bestow him, and will answer well  
> The death I gave him. So again good night.  
> I must be cruel only to be kind.  
> Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
> 
>   
> Dialogue taken verbatim from The Avengers (2012). 

Loki looks out at the city - the name of the place irrelevant - and the destruction slakes a thirst in him that has done nothing but grow in the last two years. He feels the urge to join the Chitauri in their violence, craves the feeling of brick and bone crumbling in his own hands, but the desire dies quickly under the cool knowledge that he must guard the portal. _Surely_ , soothes the blessed, beautiful clarity in the back of his mind, which Thanos and the Other so graciously gifted to Loki through the Mind Stone, _victory will be more satisfying than personal involvement_. Of course. Loki has said as such to Thor himself, countless times. Thor, the wretched thoughtless arrogant-

"Loki!" Ah, speak of a foul loathsome thing and it shall appear. "Turn off the Tesseract or I will destroy it!"

Loki's rage and hatred is familiar, and stoked eagerly by the extra presence in his mind. Yes, Thanos and the Other support Loki in this. Thor is a blight and he deserves death. Loki turns towards Thor, a step below Loki just off Stark's ostentatious landing pad, letting his lip curl up off of his teeth to imitate the furious wild thing howling and clawing inside him.

"You can't," he taunts. "There is no stopping it! There is only... The War." The phrase feels strange in his mouth, but the way Thor glares is delicious. _Here, now_ , Loki's clearer thoughts encourage, _now you can get your hands in, like you wanted_. Yes, that's right. That is exactly what Loki wants. He wants to kill Thor. He has always wanted to kill Thor. He tried before and was thwarted, but Thor does not have Odin's protection now. Now, Loki can kill him. He can do it himself and see it truly done. With an eager, wrathful scream, Loki leaps down from the landing pad and swings the scepter at Thor's head with all of his might.

Thor will die.

Loki will kill him and he will die and his pure Æsir blood will be thick and red on Loki's hands. Loki's hands, which tremble imperceptibly. He swings again and Thor ducks the scepter like a punch. Loki lashes out with his will through the Stone, and Thor only barely blocks the blast with Mjölnir twisted up in front of him at the last second. Loki's heart races painfully in his chest. He sweats and his vision is narrowing. He gasps for each breath, battling against his tightening chest. He swings at Thor's side next, the weakest point in his armor. If Loki hits him there with this weapon, he will spill his guts upon the smooth concrete. His blood will spill over Loki's boots and he will die.

There is a sound caught in Loki's throat. It is not allowed to come out. The longer it stays, the more it hurts.

Thor blocks Loki's blow with one of his own. Their weapons send up a mighty clang, and the shock travels up Loki's arm. That hurts too, but he prefers it. If it were not for that hurt, Thor would be dead.

 _But isn't that what you want?_ Loki's mind whispers. It is not quite his own thought, not quite someone else's. He must want this. He wanted it before. Not moments ago, he longed to have been successful in his first attempt on Thor's life. In that other city - its name also irrelevant - where he hunted Thor and beat him down into the dust. When Thor lay still on the hard packed ground, silent and still for once, just for one second, before he rose in glory and grandeur as he always, always did. He had thought he meant it. He hadn't regretted it then.

This time Thor will not get back up. He will die. Loki will kill him.

Loki lands a hit on Thor's head, grabs him, throws him to the ground.

 _What will it be like?_ he wonders suddenly. There is an ache in his chest that he cannot place, a terror he cannot avoid. He imagines Thor dead, really dead this time, a permanent state of _gone_. Thor covered in his own blood, Thor with broken bones, Thor with blue eyes open and glassy and unmoving. He imagines the pyre boat that Thor would have, the mourners, the empty throne. He imagines Thor's empty quarters, gathering dust. He imagines his own life, as it was, without Thor. He cannot say if it would have been better or worse, not with certainty.

 _We cannot reconcile_ , Loki's mind reminds him. _It is foolishness to even imagine_. And it is, of course, pure foolishness. And a foolishness that Loki doesn't want anyway. There are greater things in the universe than Thor's love, many of them so much easier to obtain. But now, as Loki lands a hit on Thor's hard head, as he throws Thor to the ground at his feet, as he looks down at him so near defeat and knows he can kill him now, as he feels the desire to take Thor's life like a buzz of wasps at the back of his skull, Loki cannot think of any of those greater things.

 _Power_ , he remembers, suddenly, but he also remembers the touch of Thor's hand at the back of his neck.

Loki raises the scepter above his head to bring it down on Thor's face, a killing blow.

Thor will die.

Thor will die and Loki- Loki doesn't want this. He thought he did, truly, but he was wrong. He was wrong, he was wrong hewaswrong _please_ -

Loki grins, a grotesque mockery of joy- please, no. He begins to bring the scepter down- please Norns, no.

The staccato burst of bullet fire from behind him distracts more by the noise than by the pain against Loki's armored back. He turns with relief to shoot Hawkeye and the Widow out of the sky. That is a higher priority, he tells himself insistently. They were shooting at him. It is necessary for him to turn his back to Thor, and so turn his back to Thor he can. Thor, of course, does not stay down. The rallies, furious, and pins Loki to the wall with raining punches. Loki fights, as much as he absolutely must.

"Look at this!" Thor demands. His voice is thunder as it always has been, but his eyes are like wounds even above his familiar scowl. "Look around you!" Loki obeys him, an instinct, an action of memory that cannot be broken so easily. The city looks the same as before, but Loki knows his thirst more clearly now. He was just so angry. Angry and full of a hurt that seems it must be returned to be healed.

"You think this madness will end with your rule?" Thor continues to question, pressing his arm hard across Loki's chest to recapture his attention.

"It's too late," Loki tells him, dazed. "It's too late to stop it." There is no reason for it ever to have started, Loki realizes dully. It would have been more satisfying to fight something himself, after all. To slay a ravaging creature perhaps. Victory here means little to Loki and will do him no good. What was he thinking? He can't remember, only feeling a brief roil of disgust in his gut.

"No," Thor says, and his voice has changed. This tone Loki has never heard. "We can, together." Loki wants that, just for one bare second. Wants it but he knows, in the back of his skull, he knows he cannot have it. _He doesn't mean it_ , his mind hisses. _It's a trick. He doesn't love you, he just wants to win._ Loki feels his arm start to move and he begs again - no. But his dagger sinks deep into Thor's side anyway. Thor stumbles back and falls to his knees, clutching the handle of the knife. His blood is warm and red on Loki's hand.

"Sentiment," Loki mutters. An admonishment for them both. Thor for being foolish, and Loki for being weak. Just as they both have always been. What a disappointment he is, how faulty. But Thor does not die. Thor rises and charges Loki. Near berserk, he lifts Loki high above his head and slams Loki bodily into the ground. The crunch of Loki's head into the smooth concrete is sickening, shock like the hit of Mjölnir through his wrist earlier but this time all around inside his skull, his mind rattled like the sky when Thor brings thunder.

Loki is shaken loose just long enough to think- _one day I will make Thanos feel this terror_ -

And then he is falling again, and when he lands his mind is quiet, left only with a directionless, consumptive rage.


End file.
